A NEW £25,000 sports facility has been opened to help people who want to get fit in the fresh air. .

The Trim Trail, around the perimeter of Hyndburn Sports Centre, will provide a 519-metre hard track with three exercise points featuring horizontal bars, step-up logs and parallel bars.

It has been built with funding from the North West Development Agency, Hyndburn Council and Lancashire County Council, and also includes a woodland area.

The idea for the facility came from leisure centre management who wanted to use the land around the centre more effectively, and provide an alternative to gym work as part of its involvement with Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Primary Care Trust.

The trail is free and can be accessed from nearby Emma Street or through the front of the leisure centre, and exercise can be started from any point on the track.

The work was carried out by Groundwork and ittook three months to convert the grassed land into the track.

A spokesman said: "Some people don't want to go to a gym so the centre wanted something that was comfortable and safe but outdoors."

Year six pupils from Sacred Heart RC Primary School, Bradshaw Row, Church, helped to plant the new trees on the site and were set to put on a demonstration on the new facility to show people what they could do.

Sports centre manager Joe Balko said: "We felt very strongly about giving people the opportunity to have a decent exercise point for those who didn't particularly want to come into the centre.

"Groundwork were looking along similar lines and offered to sponsor the project. It would probably have taken us 18 months to find the funding but with their help we have managed to do it earlier.

"It's useful to people who have become sedentary. Some people don't get outof their homes very often and we felt this would give them an ideal opportunity in what is, by and large, a fairly attractive and quite secure area."